Home insurance cover note

You can't get cover note insurance for your house anymore but there's a decent alternative: cooling-off periods.

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Peta Taylor

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Key takeaways

  • A home insurance cover note was once used to provide people with temporary insurance, but they're not available anymore.
  • As an alternative, insurers now offer cooling-off periods. This lets you cancel your policy before a certain date without being charged.
  • Unlike a cover note, you will have to pay for the policy first and be refunded later.

How a cooling off period can replace a cover note

A cover note used to allow you to get temporary home insurance without having to pay for the full amount of the policy. Once that time was up, you could choose to properly insure your home with an actual policy or let the cover note just run out. Unfortunately, insurers no longer offer cover notes.

Now, if you want temporary cover, you'll have to purchase the policy and then remember to cancel before the cooling period time is up. To avoid paying the full premium upfront, you could opt to pay monthly instead and then you'd only have to part with 1/12th of the policy cost.

What is a cooling off period?

A cooling off period is an amount of time where you can cancel your insurance policy and get a full refund, provided you haven't made a claim.

All home insurers offer a cooling off period but the time on offer from each does vary. Here's the cooling off periods for some popular home insurance companies. Keep in mind that if you make a claim on your home insurance during this time then you won't be entitled to a refund.

ProviderCooling-off period
aami logo21 days
NRMA Logo21 days
Allianz home insurance logo14 days
21 days
Youi logo
20 days

This information is accurate as of September 2024.

FAQs

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Peta Taylor is a publisher at Finder, working across all of insurance. She's been analysing product disclosure statements and publishing articles for over 2 years. Peta is passionate about demystifying complex insurance products to help users make well educated decisions with confidence. Peta is part of Finder's insurance awards team and works alongside editorial and insights experts to bring users the best insurance products every year. See full bio

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2 Responses

    Adrian's avatar
    AdrianSeptember 9, 2019

    What is the approx cost on insurance cover note of house value $840k over 2 days?

      Jeni's avatarFinder
      JeniSeptember 10, 2019Finder

      Hi Adrian,

      Thank you for getting in touch with Finder.

      Please note that cover notes are no longer offered in Australia. Please speak to your chosen insurer about getting home and contents insurance if you’re going on a holiday as they may offer a policy that will suit your needs with cooling off period which is usually for 21 days.

      I hope this helps.

      Thank you and have a wonderful day!

      Cheers,
      Jeni

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